“What is happening today in America is part of a global political turn — and what’s odd is how little the American people seem to realize it.” — Madeleine Schwartz
So we’ve finally arrived. America is 250 today. But where, exactly, have we come? How should we think about the United States of America on July 4, 2026?
Rather than peering inwards, Madeleine Schwartz — the Paris-based founder and editor-in-chief of The Dial — reverses the lens. Her anthology, How We See It: The World Looks at America in the Age of Trump (The New Press), gathers twelve essays from writers in India, Canada, South Africa, Ukraine, Palestine, Taiwan, Turkey, Cuba, Egypt, Argentina, Italy, and Ireland. The result might be the most honest birthday message that America will receive today.
What these writers all observe is the same extraordinary ambivalence about the United States. They describe a country that defines itself as the democratic purveyor of justice, while operating as a vast imperial and economic power that shapes the lives of the rest of the world. What’s odd — and Schwartz uses that word carefully — is how few Americans seem to realise this is how the world sees them.
“The question of America is vast. It is unrelenting and unanswerable and will not be silenced,” the Gaza poet Muhammad al-Zaqzouq notes in his essay. Happy birthday, odd America. You might not know it, but the rest of the world is watching. And they won’t forget what they’ve seen.
Five Takeaways
• The World’s Ambivalence. America presents itself as the purveyor of hope and democracy. It operates as a vast imperial and economic power shaping the lives of billions who have no vote. This ambivalence is almost impossible to understand from inside the US.
• Turkey and Trump: Learning From Each Other. The Turkish right has long admired the vast powers of the American presidency — not for its values, but for its structural power. Trump has learned from Erdoğan. What is happening in America is not exceptional. It is a global turn.
• Taiwan: Going It Alone. Taiwanese people once upheld civil liberties and LGBTQ rights to win American favour. Not anymore. They take self-defence classes and prepare for a Chinese invasion without expecting US help. The values are now upheld for their own sake.
• The Dial: 90 Countries, a Third in Translation. Founded four years ago in Paris to combat American media’s catastrophic inwardness. Work from 90 countries, a third in translation. Schwartz will be talking about the book in Paris on July 4, not eating hot dogs.
• The Gaza Poet’s Verdict. Muhammad al-Zaqzouq: a father of three who has spent years trying to reach America, unable to under Trump. “The question of America is vast. It is unrelenting and unanswerable and will not be silenced.” Of all the voices in the anthology, it is the one that stays.
About the Guest
Madeleine Schwartz is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Dial and the editor of How We See It (The New Press, June 9, 2026). She teaches journalism at Sciences Po and is based in Paris.
References
How We See It by Madeleine Schwartz / The Dial (The New Press, June 9, 2026): thenewpress.com/books/how-we-see-it
The Dial: thedial.world
About Keen On America
Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.
Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow
Chapters:
00:00:31 July 4 and the world’s view of America
00:02:39 What do you mean by ambivalence?
00:04:55 Is America a different kind of superpower?
00:05:49 Turkey: Erdoğan and Trump learning from each other
00:25:56 Taiwan: going it alone
00:29:25 Why Schwartz founded The Dial
00:31:47 Muhammad al-Zaqzouq: the question of America
00:33:07 The closing lines of the Gaza